Arkansas farmers discuss crucial need for water

It is essential for their future. For some, that future is in the eyes of their children. For others, it is in the crop they intend to plant in the coming years. For many, the future is now.

Water will always be essential for farming — that is without a doubt. The problem comes when wells run dry, the climate in summer produces no rain, and a farmer’s reservoirs sit empty.

A group of farmers gathered Wednesday afternoon to ask for help. On the banks of a reservoir, situated between Hazen and Stuttgart, Senator Mark Pryor listened to the farmers’ needs.

“If it wasn’t for this reservoir, we would be in trouble,” Frank Prislovsky, an area farmer, said.

The reservoir he spoke about was situated right behind the crowd and held any farmer’s gold — water for this year’s crop. Prislovsky said his farm has abandoned one well this year due to its lack of water. Prislovsky, along with his brother Gene Prislovsky, also a farmer, have had nearly 30 test holes with no luck in finding any more.

Essential to their future, they say, is the Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project. This sentiment was echoed throughout the crowd gathered at the reservoir.

“It is the same on our end,” Donnie Stroh, a farmer from the DeWitt area, said. “There just is not any water down there.”

Stroh has also witnessed several wells abandoned on his farm.

“When it rains, we pump,” he explained. “When it don’t, we’re out.”

The Grand Prairie Project will include a pumping station at the White River near DeValls Bluff to extract water from the White River. Pipelines will then be constructed to move the water. A canal system will deliver the water to the Grand Prairie region to farmers, where they will store it on their farms in their reservoirs.

“We are waiting on this to come through, just like these guys,” Mason Sickel, who spoke up for the younger generation of farmers mixed into the group, said.

The area has plenty of water, David Feilke explained, but most of it is going to the gulf.

“We are losing rice acres in this area,” he said. “We know we will have good farms with the irrigation.”

The construction cost is $400 million. To date, $50 million — $40 million on farm and $10 million at the pumping station — has been completed.

“There is nothing more important than getting water,” Sen. Bobby Glover said of the farmer’s priorities.

Glover said the farmers are depending on Pryor to get them help so they can see this project completed.

“Without agriculture, we would be a mess,” Glover said.

According to the White River Irrigation District, $40 million a year of federal funding will make the local payback possible. They need $57.6 million in 2010 to build the pump station, pipelines and canal to Highway 63.

“Blanche Lincoln and Marion Berry have gone to bat for this,” Pryor said. “I will continue to try and help. I am on the committee now and we are working together on it. We are going to try. This is not only important to food production, but also municipalities. You guys are doing everything you can.”

Pryor went on to say the group would hear good news and bad news during the course of working to get this project finished. He asked them not to get their hopes up or get to concerned with the day-to-day but to remain optimistic about the big picture.

“This would be a good use of stimulus money, we are going to try,” Pryor said.

The group has been sued twice during the course of getting the project up — the group won both lawsuits and say there will always be some opposition until farmers run out of water.

“We appreciate anything you can do,” Dennis Carman, chief engineer and director of the White River Irrigation District, said to Sen. Pryor.

But timing is critical, Carman says, the alluvial aquifer is out of water and the use of the Sparta Aquifer is not sustainable — Sparta Aquifer use by agriculture must be stopped.

The group broke up and made their way back down the reservoir levee with the hope that Pryor understands their situation when he heads back to Washington.